Each ESSCO Executive member takes on a conference as their own each year. What this entails is liaising with and supporting the host school as they plan the event, and organizing conference content. President’s Meeting (PM) was my “baby”, and it was quite an amazing experience.

First and foremost, I should make it clear that President’s Meeting ran smoothly and efficiently from a logistical standpoint (thanks Laurentian EngSoc), and a lot of content was a success (a huge shout out to all the session leaders, and Mac Eng delegates who essentially each lead a topic when no one else volunteered—Thanks everyone!). President’s Meeting planning had some hurdles to clear very late in the game, but the organizing team at Laurentian pulled together an amazing conference!

Factoring in feedback from EngSoc leaders, not every session made everyone happy, and improvements can been made, but the feedback was not unusual. My biggest challenge was finding volunteer speakers in short time, and I sincerely hope that more leaders would volunteer in the future.

Sessions allowed us to collect feedback on how to represent students to organizations like PEO, OSPE, and the Council of Ontario Deans of Engineering.

Many sessions allowed EngSoc leaders to learn from each other, and to build on their existing offerings of academic and social services. Furthermore, Finance leaders took home some financial management advice to help benefit more than a few EngSoc budgets.

ESSCO’s outreach initiatives collected some great feedback, and had some excellent collaborative work going on. We look forward to seeing some positive changes to Wonderland Math & Physics Day, and National Engineering Month in the coming year! Also, check out the new chart which presents the programs/streams at each school.

I am also very happy that EngSoc leaders made so many connections. My experience is that EngSoc leadership is more successful when you have peers to work with and bounce ideas off of. With all the new connections, there are plenty of opportunities for Ontario EngSoc leaders to do that in the next year. If you’re an Ontario engineering student, hopefully you will see the result of that in the form of newer, useful services in the near future. If not, bug your EngSoc leaders!

A huge thanks once again to all of the delegates on a great weekend meeting, and for all your participation in sessions. Also an enormous thanks to all those companies and organizations which came out to speak at the conference. Without your support at ESSCO’s events, engineering student leadership would not be able to develop in as collaborative environment as this.